Alex Pekov

For your mental health, GPA, and overall happiness--don't take this class and switch your major. It also felt inappropriate that the instructors insisted on intellectualizing sensitive issues in the presence of students who had admitted struggling with those very issues and problematized the way the class was being led.

This course taught us basic Russian grammar and vocabulary, especially in the context of university and family life.

This course gave me a great foundation from which to continue writing a thesis. However, I wonder if the students who did not plan to write a thesis found it beneficial.

I learned how to speak, read, and understand russian at a basic level. This course taught me basic grammar and vocabulary pertaining to relevant topics such as living situations, school, and standard conversation topics.

I have to be honest that I've sort of avoided a lot of ICLS classes while I'm here (I did my comparative coursework requirement through CSER), mostly because the intro class was one of the worst classes I've taken at Columbia––it was really marginalizing for anyone who wasn't a white man studying french or german texts by white men in the 19th-20th centuries. This class was really different in that regard. Sure, we read some of the "fathers" of certain methodological/theoretical arguments, etc.. but Seth also opened up a lot of space (including on the syllabus and in class discussions) for real feminist/Black feminist/queer critique of that kind of thinking. I took too many classes this term so I couldn't always do all of the reading, but this class was the first time at Columbia that I have felt like I am actually part of the intellectual project of ICLS.

Very basic Russian grammars, vocabulary, and daily dialogues. We listen, read, speak, and write in Russian.

I learned a significant amount about the writing process; I was pushed to consider for the first time how I want to write, and for whom or to what end.

I can now read, write, speak, and understand very elementary russian.

Quite diffuse topics. Lots of diff things in theory, a lot of it focused around social justice topics.

I learned how to read and write in Cyrillic and speak basic Russian.